Hello, WNC!

We’re pleased to be treating at White Pine Acupuncture with these fine folks.

When we started our clinic in southwestern Virginia, we were Valley Classical Acupuncture (VCA.) This name was a reference both to our physical location in the Shenandoah/Roanoke Valleys, and to a certain type of acupuncture point, translated as “valleys.”

But here in western North Carolina, the elevation is a bit higher and the physical part of “valley” doesn’t really apply. Plus, moving a business to a new place is like repotting a plant; it’s an opportune time for a reassessment and a little pruning.

We believe the soil here is good for us, and we also know it’s a different climate than our beloved Fincastle. Though in many ways WNC is “same church, different pew” (as my Gramma used to say,) the need here is slightly different than in SWVA. So to best meet that need, we’ve redefined our focus and changed our name accordingly.

We’re now the Lantern Project. Our mission is to integrate classical medicine into modern life through collaborative efforts that engage and connect people. We offer this in response to our collective human need to examine our experience together, rather than in isolation. We are a welcoming gathering point for people interested in complementary medicine, health, and healing.

We offer three avenues of exploration and interaction:

Discussion: Through the Touchstones curriculum, a discussion-based program started by faculty of St. John’s College. This curriculum has been used for about 30 years and is a roundtable discussion around texts that have been carefully chosen both for interesting conversation, and to guide the group through four stages of solving the usual obstacles that hinder most group dynamics. Touchstones is learning by doing; there will be no lectures or tests. A few authors included in this session: Frederick Douglass, James Madison, Mary Shelley, Homer, and Alice Walker. The first Touchstones group is forming now; it’s open to anyone, and there’s no fee to join.

Treatment: We offer classical acupuncture and herbal medicine services at Park Place and White Pine Acupuncture, both on Charlotte St. in Asheville, NC. To learn more about what that means, please visit our FAQ page.

Information: The focus of our blog is to share in our discovery of what health and healing are. We plan to explore some vast and interesting topics – suffering, placebo, nocebo, qi gong, phantom limb syndrome, diseases of the DNA, language used in medicine, meditation, patient/practitioner relationship. There’s no shortage of material out there, but we’re also open to suggestions. If there’s something you want to read about, please drop us a line!